The poet John Milton was a difficult man who lived in difficult times. A republican at the time of the restoration of Charles II to the throne, the blind Milton found himself summarily bounced from his job, tossed into prison, and threatened with execution before he was eventually released. Despite his troubles, or perhaps because of them, it was in this tumultuous time that Milton created his enduring masterpiece Paradise Lost. But what if he hadn't? What if, instead of pouring his creative energies into poetry, Milton had followed a different path, say, to America? This is the premise of Peter Akroyd's novel, Milton in America. In Milton in America the poet flees England for the New World, where he proceeds to establish a Puritan community and to become increasingly obsessed and repressive as years go by. Milton's madness reaches a bloody climax when a group of Roman Catholics sets up a settlement nearby. Admirers of Ackroyd's previous works will find this one intriguing; admirers of the historical Milton might well be outraged by this radical revision of the great man's life.

From Library Journal
Suppose that instead of returning his attention to the crafting of poetry upon the restoration of Charles II in 1660, John Milton had fled to New England with the idea of creating his own earthly paradise. Suppose, too, that you are among those who see Milton as a strict Puritan and domestic tyrant?a man whose sensuousness T.S. Eliot once claimed was "withered by book learning" and his blindness. Then suppose that you are an author with a reputation as an imaginative, witty storyteller (e.g., The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, LJ 5/15/95). Given such circumstances, you might very well create a novel as compelling and as entertaining as this one. Exuding moral rectitude and self-importance, Ackroyd's Milton becomes an even greater despot than the kings he professes so fervently to despise. As a result, his companions in the wilderness are forced to pay a fearful price. This tale of the dangers of self-righteous pomposity and bigotry is adroitly and wittily crafted (you have to love characters like Humility Tilly and Outspoken Mather?even if your not familiar with Colonial history) and carries with it an important message. Highly recommended for all libraries.?David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersberg, Fla.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Tony Tanner
What if the Spanish Armada had won? If the South had been allowed to secede from the United States? If Britain hadn't decoded the German signals in World War II? Such not-so-frivolous imaginings can serve as explorations of possibility and plausibility. Constructively speculating about what did not happen, but might have, can throw new light on what did happen, but might not have. In his counterfactual fiction, Mr. Ackroyd swerves away from biographical fact and has Milton, instead of writing Paradise Lost, becoming an almost insane, sadistic Puritan bigot in America. But to what end? Is the game worth the candle? Does it illuminate? Does it entertain?

From Booklist
Imagine that in 1660, as the monarchy is restored in England, John Milton, 52 and blind, decides to flee to Puritan America, and you'll have the premise for Ackroyd's latest examination of genius. Along the way, Milton, part Old Testament prophet, part performance artist, takes up with a young man, himself on the run, names him Goosequill, and makes him his manservant and secretary. Goosequill, earthy and a bit irreverent, serves as the perfect foil for Milton; their dialogue, at turns intimate, poignant, and tremendously funny, is the book's backbone. Headed for Boston, their ship crashes off the coast, leaving Milton and Goosequill washed up on shore. They finally make it to the Puritan settlement of New Tiverton, where Milton is received as a hero. As expected with Ackroyd, this is not a straightforward narrative: there are changes in narrator and person, some chapters are letters, others journal entries. But perseverance is worth it; Ackroyd's Milton is an extraordinary character whose voice rings out long after the book is closed. Brian Kenney

From Kirkus Reviews
The prolific Ackroyd (Blake, 1996; The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, 1995, etc., etc.) imagines how things might have gone if the great John Milton, Puritan sympathizer and quondam secretary to Oliver Cromwell, had fled to America after the restoration of Charles II to avoid the distinct possibility of his own execution. Milton sets sail in the spring of 1660, at that time in high spirits and vital humor. Blind for eight years, he is accompanied by a cheerful, educated young man dubbed Goosequill for his ability to write--and for the unruliness of his hair. Serving as Milton's amanuensis as well as his eyes, Goosequill saves the great man's life when arrival in the New World comes via shipwreck and a subsequent trek through the wilderness--ending at last at the little puritan settlement of New Tiverton, whose godly people honor Milton by begging him to be ``author and prime architect'' of their emergent ``little commonwealth'' of (renamed) New Milton. All goes well at first, until two things happen--one being a six-week disappearance from which Milton returns mysteriously changed; and the other the arrival from Virginia of a pleasure-loving group of papists who found their own town--Mary Mount--nearby. More repugnant to Milton even than the Catholics' foul and benighted religion is their embracing of--and intermarriage with--the Indians. The learned scholar and poet becomes a raving model of intolerance, vilely persecutes even his own people, and finally, in 1662, organizes the nearby towns of New England into an actual war against Mary Mount--with heartrending results. Not subtle or deep in probing character--even Milton's--yet a tour de force of historical fiction with gold mines of place names, people's names, atmosphere, and ideas. Not a word is said about Paradise Lost--printed, in real life, in 1667. In this allegorical novel about America, race, and ferocities of hatred and fear, the suggestion is that paradise was lost long ago. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher
When Peter Ackroyd, one of Britain's undisputed literary masters, writes a new novel, it is a literary event. With his last novel, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, "as gripping and ingenious a murder mystery as you could hope to come across," in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, he reached a whole new level of critical and popular success. Now, with his trademark blending of historical fact and fictive fancy, Ackroyd has placed the towering poet of Paradise Lost in the new Eden that is colonial America.John Milton, aging, blind, fleeing the restoration of English monarchy and all the vain trappings that go with it ("misrule" in his estimation), comes to New England, where he is adopted by a community of fellow puritans as their leader. With his enormous powers of intellect, his command of language, and the awe the townspeople hold him in, Milton takes on absolute power. Insisting on strict and merciless application of puritan justice, he soon becomes, in his attempt at regaining paradise, as much a tyrant as the despots from whom he and his comrades have sought refuge, more brutal than the "savage" native Americans.As always, Ackroyd has crafted a thoroughly enjoyable novel that entertains while raising provocative questions--this time about America's founding myths. With a resurgence of interest in the puritans (in the movie adaptations of The Scarlet Letter and the forthcoming The Crucible), Milton in America is particularly relevant. It is also entirely absorbing--in short, vintage Ackroyd.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When Peter Ackroyd, one of Britain's undisputed literary masters, writes a new novel, it is a literary event. With his last novel, The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, "as gripping and ingenious a murder mystery as you could hope to come across," in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, he reached a whole new level of critical and popular success. Now, with his trademark blending of historical fact and fictive fancy, Ackroyd has placed the towering poet of Paradise Lost in the new Eden that is colonial America.

John Milton, aging, blind, fleeing the restoration of English monarchy and all the vain trappings that go with it ("misrule" in his estimation), comes to New England, where he is adopted by a community of fellow puritans as their leader. With his enormous powers of intellect, his command of language, and the awe the townspeople hold him in, Milton takes on absolute power. Insisting on strict and merciless application of puritan justice, he soon becomes, in his attempt at regaining paradise, as much a tyrant as the despots from whom he and his comrades have sought refuge, more brutal than the "savage" native Americans.

As always, Ackroyd has crafted a thoroughly enjoyable novel that entertains while raising provocative questions—this time about America's founding myths. With a resurgence of interest in the puritans (in the movie adaptations of The Scarlet Letter and the forthcoming The Crucible), Milton in America is particularly relevant. It is also entirely absorbing—in short, vintage Ackroyd.

FROM THE CRITICS

M.A. Gillis - Booklist

The novel's premise is that in 1660, as the monarchy is restored in England, the poet John Milton, '52 and blind, decides to flee to Puritan America. . . . Along the way, Milton . . . takes up with a young man, himself on the run, names him Goosequill and makes him his manservant and secretary. . . . Headed for Boston, their ship crashes off the coast, leaving Milton and Goosequill washed up on shore. They finally make it to the Puritan settlement of New Tiverton, where Milton is received as a hero.

Publishers Weekly

Ackroyd (Chatterton, Hawksmoor, English Music) is nothing if not daring, a novelist (and literary biographer) with a remarkable feel for classic English literature and an antic imagination. What he has supposed here is something that could have happened but didn't: the aged, blind John Milton, in disgrace for his anti-royalist sympathies at the Restoration, joins the Puritans fleeing to the New World in the middle of the 17th century. It turns out to be a remarkably fecund conceit, carried off with Ackroyd's accustomed narrative dash and fine period ear and eye. We see the blind Milton, accompanied as his "eyes" by a brash young Cockney he dubs Goosequill, boarding a boat for America, then wrecked upon the shore of what is now Rhode Island and finally coming to rest in a Puritan colony that is promptly named after him. Ackroyd's Milton is a contradictory creature. At first, he's admirably courageous and imaginative, but then, as he is surrounded by paragons of religiosity he secretly despises, he becomes increasingly rigid and intolerant. The worldly, easygoing Goosequill quickly finds common cause with the Indians, later with members of a lively neighboring Catholic community Milton abhors. In the end, the poet's bitter inflexibility leads to war. The problem with Ackroyd's vision, despite the skill with which it is set forth, is twofold: Milton as represented here could scarcely, for all his learning, have been the sweeping and compassionate poet we know; and, in some awkward narrative shifts in which Milton appears to be writing home to a kinsman, we get a thoroughly confused idea of what is happening in his mind. Is he secretly drawn to the Indians and their mysteries? Does he briefly recover his sight, only to lose it again? There are opacities here that are the more regrettable because so much of the novel is fresh and thought-provoking. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Suppose that instead of returning his attention to the crafting of poetry upon the restoration of Charles II in 1660, John Milton had fled to New England with the idea of creating his own earthly paradise. Suppose, too, that you are among those who see Milton as a strict Puritan and domestic tyrant,a man whose sensuousness T.S. Eliot once claimed was 'withered by book learning' and his blindness. Then suppose that you are an author with a reputation as an imaginative, witty storyteller. Given such circumstances, you might very well create a novel as compelling and as entertaining as this one.

Exuding moral rectitude and self-importance, Ackroyd's Milton becomes an even greater despot than the kings he professes so fervently to despise. As a result, his companions in the wilderness are forced to pay a fearful price. This tale of the dangers of self-righteous pomposity and bigotry is adroitly and wittily crafted (you have to love characters like Humility Tilly and Outspoken Mathereven if you're not familiar with Colonial history) and carries with it an important message. -- David W. Henderson, Eckerd College Library, St. Petersburg, FL

Library Journal

Suppose that instead of returning his attention to the crafting of poetry upon the restoration of Charles II in 1660, John Milton had fled to New England with the idea of creating his own earthly paradise. Suppose, too, that you are among those who see Milton as a strict Puritan and domestic tyrant,a man whose sensuousness T.S. Eliot once claimed was 'withered by book learning' and his blindness. Then suppose that you are an author with a reputation as an imaginative, witty storyteller. Given such circumstances, you might very well create a novel as compelling and as entertaining as this one.

Exuding moral rectitude and self-importance, Ackroyd's Milton becomes an even greater despot than the kings he professes so fervently to despise. As a result, his companions in the wilderness are forced to pay a fearful price. This tale of the dangers of self-righteous pomposity and bigotry is adroitly and wittily crafted (you have to love characters like Humility Tilly and Outspoken Mathereven if you're not familiar with Colonial history) and carries with it an important message. -- David W. Henderson, Eckerd College Library, St. Petersburg, FL

M.A. Gillis